Air Exchange
The Air Exchange, also known as Air Conditioner, AirEx'Playable [[Half-Life 2 Beta|''Half-Life 2 Beta]] files or '''Combine's atmospheric reprocessor, is a location and chapter cut from Half-Life 2. It was to be set after the Depot, at the end of the Wasteland / Coast chapters, and before the Borealis,Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar as the penultimate location of the third day. Prototyped and having all its maps made (although they are very messy and hard to fix),WC mappack it was never finalized to let the team concentrate on areas more fruitful for gameplay. Overview Like the Citadel and the Depot and possibly the Weather Control, the AirEx was to be one of the many Air Exchanges spread on Earth by the Combine. Similar in the surface to common Earth factories, it was to be a Combine facility guarded by Combine Soldiers and Stalkers that was to replace the air by noxious, murky gases with its main reactor powered by an unknown blue energy source, probably the storyline predecessor of the Dark Energy. Most of the air of the region was to be highly toxic, and most of the City 17 inhabitants were to wear gas masks. As leader of the Conscripts, Captain Vance was to play a compromised and dangerous role protecting the facility ("airex_03040506" also features several visgroups named after Vance, and a command center). Trucks of unknown use were to be found in the facility, along with refineries. Barnacles and Zombies were also to be found in several areas.WC mappack In this chapter, early concepts have Gordon Freeman arriving by train and crashing into a small depot located before the facility. There he was to meet Alyx and her pet alien Skitch. Then they would be attacked by Striders and Combine Super Soldiers. While Vance and his Conscripts were to launch an attack on the Weather Control, three chapters after the AirEx chapter, it is likely that some battle was to take place at the very start of the chapter, outside and inside the AirEx, since Vance was to protect the facility. It is also said that Eli Maxwell was the first to mention the AirEx existence to Gordon, probably in his slideshow. Inside the facility, Gordon was to reach the top of the industrial tower where seems to be located a control room and battle a Gunship and then jump into a pool of industrial solvents at its base. Then he was to go inside the main reactor of the facility, protected and operated by Stalkers, and sabotage its core (its design is almost identical to the Lambda Core from Half-Life), making the Air Exchange completely nonoperational and triggering the human uprising in City 17. Then, Gordon was to reach the shore on foot and proceed to the Borealis with Odell on a tugboat. Fate *The AirEx is part of the storyline set between Nova Prospekt and the City 17 street wars that was completely cut, the game timespan having been reduced to three days instead of the original four. Some elements were however recycled: blowing up the facility to trigger the uprising was merged with the Depot levels to make the Nova Prospekt levels; reaching the top of the industrial tower and blowing up the core of the whole facility was recycled in the Citadel levels, along with the factory-like themes. *The AirEx was last worked on in February 2002; the last AirEx map to be modified, the map "temp3.vmf" (an overview of the AirEx, with a different design of the reactor) was last modified on that date.WC mappack *It is uncertain whether or not the AirEx exists in the final storyline of the game, but as there are no in-game references to it, it is quite likely that it does not. This is especially true as its effects were to force the remaining humans to wear gas masks apparently constantly, as seen in other related early concepts. The fact that no humans are witnessed wearing said masks means that the idea was almost definitely removed completely. *While Alyx and Gordon do not experience a train wreck in Half-Life 2 like originally planned, they do in Episode One and Episode Two. Trivia Pistons similar to the ones featured around the AirEx core can be found in maps of the tiles version of the Citadel, although as brushes, not as models. Gallery File:Airex reactor.jpg|The main reactor. File:Airex tower1.jpg|The AirEx industrial tower. File:Airex tower large.jpg|Ditto. File:Airex tower2.jpg|Ditto. File:Airex tower4.jpg|Ditto. File:D2 airex tower.jpg|Ditto. File:Airex tower top.jpg|Inside the industrial tower. File:Wasteland Airex skybox.jpg|Razor Train running through the Wasteland near the Air Exchange (and a part of the skybox). File:Airex reactor inside 1.jpg|Gigantic pistons in the Air Exchange reactor. File:Airex pistons inside.jpg|Ditto. File:Airex pistons 3.jpg|Ditto. File:Airex pipes outside.jpg|Pipes outside of the Air Exchange compound, with the industrial tower on the top-right. File:Airex start concept visgroup.jpg|Part of the map "airex_start", on which the previous concept art is actually based. File:Airex reactor inside2.jpg|Inside the Air Exchange. File:Airex rocks.jpg|The Air Exchange outer wall and the end of the highway. File:Airex catwalks.jpg|Pipes and catwalks under the outer wall. File:D2 airex truck.jpg|Fixed AirEx Truck. File:Airex inside.jpg|Inside the Air Exchange grounds, with the reactor in the back. File:Airex reactorpipe.jpg|The Air Exchange reactor. File:Airex buildings.jpg|Various buildings inside the Air Exchange grounds. File:Airex overview1.jpg|Ditto. File:Airex overview2.jpg|Ditto. File:Airex command center.jpg|Exterior of the Air Exchange command center. File:Airex command center inside.jpg|Inside the command center. Its design is very similar to that of the industrial tower. Conscripts should be there in place of Overwatch Soldiers. This is also where Captain Vance was to be met. File:Airex pipes.jpg|Pipes inside the reactor. File:Airex reactor vents.jpg|Ditto. File:Airex soldiers.jpg|Overwatch Soldiers near the Air Exchange reactor. File:Airex field tunnel.jpg|Tunnel conducting unknown energy near the Air Exchange reactor. File:AirEx reactor pistons.jpg|Gigantic pistons inside the Air Exchange reactor's core engine. File:D2 airex 06007.jpg|Ditto. File:Airex reactor core.jpg|Inside the Air Exchange reactor core powered by an unknown energy source. File:AirEx pistons model.jpg|Pistons model. File:AirEx vent.jpg|Vent model. List of appearances *''Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar'' Notes and references See also *Half-Life 2 original storyline#Air Exchange - AirEx - Air Conditioner External links *First map of the chapter (slightly modified) *Air Exchange mod - complete chapter on the Half-Life Beta Project website (does not contain everything; requires registering and the playable Beta) * * Category:Half-Life 2 leak Category:Combine locations Category:Cut Locations Category:The Coast locations Category:Locations Category:Viktor Antonov designs